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.. | Click OK to receive our occasional Newsletter Check the daily headlines affecting your world. New Product CAD Designers....Who Needs Them (April 15, 1997): The temporary contract industry has grown by leaps and bounds over the last twenty-five years. The reasons for this growth are obvious. It makes more sense for a company to hire a temporary employee to help with peak workloads and let them move on to the next assignment when the crunch is over. This is true for secretaries, assemblers and manufacturing people as well as product designers. This increasing need for temporary contract people in almost all ranks of the company motivates the Human Resource (HR) departments to limit the number of contract agencies that they deal with and enter into exclusive agreements with an agency of choice. Ironically, the companies usually choose their exclusive contract agency based on a past volume relationship or on the agency's ability to provide people in all areas of temporary contract needs. They look for the department store one-stop agency and sign an exclusive agreement for all their staffing needs. HR wants to be in the loop for all hiring and deal with as few vendors as possible. The contracts are usually negotiated at a fixed markup for various job classifications and have an exclusive contractual term of two to five years. In today's global economy, Fortune companies are faced with more competition and time pressure. New product Research and Development (R&D) schedules become a paramount issue for success, profitability and even survival. Product development schedules make or break even the giants in an ever-changing new product design cycle. Consumers demand state-of-the-art products at competitive prices. They shop for the best features, benefits, styling and prices regardless of whether they are distributors, resellers or end users. The pressure is on to design, prototype and mass produce reliable new products on a regular basis. History has shown that the companies who ignore this market demand will eventually fail or become an insignificant player. Over the last twenty years we have seen numerous examples of medium to large companies who thought they had the world by the tail, only to find them later groping for their existence. The temporary contract market, like most other markets, has vertical niche specialty markets. There are agencies that specialize in software development people, hardware development people and CAD designers and detailers. These specialty agencies spend all day recruiting people in their specialty areas. They talk the language, understand the technical terms and screen the candidates for exactly what their clients are looking for. The recruiters, sales people and even the management of these specialty agencies usually have a technical background. This allows them to search in the right areas and find the right people when other large full service volume thinking agencies cannot. The specialty agencies do not rely on volume with any one client. They survive by placing one, two or three key contractors in the various research and development departments of their clients. This article will address one particular specialty area known as Computer Aided Design (CAD), however, most of the points made in this article apply to all areas of technical product development. A typical product research and development cycle has an urgent demand for highly skilled CAD engineers and designers in the mechanical or electrical application areas. Over the last twenty years CAD has become the standard for engineering productivity and product design automation worldwide. The CAD experts are needed for short or long periods of time when the workload is at a peak level. This is where the specialty technical temporary agency comes into play. The company may have urgent needs for CAD designers or engineers for six-twelve months to augment their permanent CAD staff and to shed new light on the product ideas in general. These highly skilled CAD contract people spend their time traveling around the country from job to job putting out the schedule fires. Normally these CAD consultants specialize in a particular area i.e. Tool Design, Structure Design, Stress Analysis, Simulation, Modeling, Detailing, Layout etc. Their CAD specialty areas coupled with their in depth CAD system understanding makes them a valuable addition to any development team. Some of them are qualified to train permanent staff and become an overall CAD support resource to the entire research and development department. So where do you find these people? If they are in such high demand, how much money will we have to pay? Why can't our current temporary contract sources find these people? These are just a few of the questions this article will address. The CAD specialty agencies maintain a very close relationship with the CAD vendors themselves. This allows the agency to keep abreast with the latest CAD software revisions, features and benefits. In some cases the CAD specialty agencies become the primary source for staffing at the CAD vendors sales and support facilities as well as their major customers around the world. In the case of CADstar International the agencies primary slogan is "The Technical Agency the CAD Vendors Use". If the companies base their agency selection on a past volume relationship, the agency who supplied the most clerical, assembly and manufacturing people will become their likely selection. What about product development people? Why would these companies restrict their product development department to these exclusive sources? Getting products to market on time before the competition is the very lifeblood of the organization. Product development is what provides each and every employee with a paycheck. Can the exclusive sources that were selected find or even understand the technical product development needs? What happens if these exclusive agencies can't find the development people? Why would they even consider tying the hands that feed them? Restrict the hiring for the department that makes or breaks the company? Typically, the specialty agencies that find themselves locked out of these companies use them as recruiting sources for other clients. Recently some companies have come to realize this problem and have changed their strategy by selecting exclusive agencies for the volume clerical and manufacturing areas and excluded the engineering disciplines from the exclusive agreement. They give their engineering managers a free hand to directly deal with and hire from any agency source that can find the qualified people. They understand that just because a full service agency is able to service their volume needs on a regular basis doesn't make them good at servicing the limited low quantity of technical product designers. Some of the bill rates for these highly skilled CAD product designers can be shocking to the managers who are new to hiring temporary contractors. They react to the rates by comparing the rates with their direct staff. They usually don't consider the real cost of a direct employee. Typically, the real cost of a direct employee, factoring in the company's overhead and benefit costs, can be two to three times their yearly salary or equivalent hourly rate. When comparing, they don't consider that the contractor receives fewer benefits (Vacation, Holidays, Insurance, 401K, Profit Sharing) and enjoy little or no job security. Because the specialty agencies spend all of their time talking with clients and candidates they are more qualified to negotiate the most competitive hourly rates for the clients. In the long run after they get over the initial rate shock the companies find that the cost of the contractor was insignificant when compared to the consequences of missing the competitive product window, Not to mention the high cost of engineering changes to correct the problems created by inexperienced CAD designers. The specialty agencies keep a close handle on the rates around the country by conducting a rate survey on a regular basis. In order to supply their clients with the right people. It is not unusual for them to send a contractor who lives on the East Coast to an assignment on the West Coast or vice versa. The billing rates they quote to their clients are intended to offset the normal cost of payrolling i.e. Workers Compensation, SUI, FUI, FICA and of course some profit for the agency. In some cases the agency may offer the contractor a start or finish bonus that is intended to provide an incentive to the contractor to stay for the duration of the assignment. The agency may ask the client to pay for or share this cost. The forward thinking leading edge companies rely on the specialty agencies to supply their critical product development CAD designers. They understand that the specialty agencies have databases of thousands of qualified CAD people who specialize in certain areas of the development cycle. They realize that with such a high demand the window of availability for candidates is very short and that they must select a candidate and confirm with the agency quickly. They are not afraid to pay the competitive rates in order to get the right people. As a result they usually meet their product development schedules and maintain their leadership position and competitive edge in the marketplace.
CADstar International is one of the premier specialty agencies with focus on (as their name implies) CAD designers, detailers, trainers and applications support temporary and permanent people. Since inception in 1988 they have developed an extensive CADMATCHâ database of more than twenty five thousand CAD candidates worldwide.
Advanced Internet Recruiting Seminars (March 28, 1997): We're going to be delivering Seminars around the country in April and May. The schedule is:
1997 Electronic Recruiting Index (February 23, 1997): The 1997 Electronic Recruiting Index is a combination industry analysis, directory and hands-on guide for Navigating the transition into maturity as an Internet Recruiter. It includes:
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The past 16 months of the Electronic Recruiting News Besides our industry analyses and newsletters, we help recruiters integrate this new technology into their operations. We've added a detailed description of IBN to the website. We'd love to help you.
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